Well, we are here. The first season finale of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Creating a worthwhile finale for a show that arguably has had the strongest first season of any Star Trek series must have been a daunting task and the creators absolutely nailed it by giving us something fresh while at the same time returning to classic canon as an outline.
1. Setting Phasers to Stun Our Speculating
The writers must have heard the fans theorizing about just how Captain Pike’s dark future could be dodged, subverted, or out right completely changed; and they are having none of it. Again, for those who are not deeply versed in Trek canon or decided to dip in and out of this season, Christopher Pike is set to be horribly scarred and damaged when protecting a crew of cadets during a training mission that goes horribly wrong. This has been known since the 1966 Star Trek two part episode, “The Menagerie.” However, with time travel, alternate realities, new character information, and a reinterpreting of set canon all being new and old parts of all things Trek, it was beginning to look as though Pike’s fate could be changed.
This episode tells those hoping for a better future that they are wrong and must let go of this notion, no matter how much fans love this hero. Using a bit of It’s A Wonderful Life style storytelling, when Captain Pike comes up with a plan to not only save himself, but those who he would need to rescue ten-ish years from now, a Pike from an alternate future comes back to say that he absolutely should not change his fate as it will have dire and irreversible effects on every timeline moving forward. Handing over one of the Klingon time crystals that showed Chris his future in the first place, he is sent to this different future and things are similar, but quite different than how they should be; most notable to long time Trekkies.
As this episode plays out, we and the character learns that things MUST stay as they have been destined to, otherwise all we know will not play out as it should. And not just in a slightly different, Kelvin timeline kind of way. Things will be BAD. This is something I wholeheartedly agree with. Why change his fate just because we’re in a new show and it could happen? The fans loving Pike should make his sacrifice all the more powerful. That love should not be reason for pulling a time travel switch-a-roo.
2. Captain James T. Kirk of the Federation Starship…Farragut?
Aside from all of the other universe shattering changes that Pike could bring about with a timely delivered message, a major fan favorite would live out a very different life, and probably never become captain of the Enterprise. If Pike does not become grievously injured when he is supposed to he continues on as the ship’s captain, bringing us to the very important moment at the center of this episode. And a major reason why things don’t go as they should is because, for as great a captain as Pike is, he is not who should be at the center of the conflict. It needs to be James Kirk. In canon, Kirk’s first deep space deployment is on the U.S.S. Farragut as a lieutenant, gradually making his way through the ranks until eventually captaining the Enterprise as the crew shifts over to the famed TOS cast and they are sent on their own five year mission. This Jim Kirk has seemingly never left this post and has worked his way up to the captain’s chair. It almost feels like he has played it too safe and just stuck to what he’s known, sticking to a lesser exploration ship rather than getting the big chair on the flagship.
Kirk, now played by Paul Wesley, is not the boyishly charming hero with a certain kind of swagger we have seen before played originally by William Shatner and then in the Kelvin films, by Chris Pine. Those two, while having lived different lives, do end up on similar paths in their respective universes. Wesley’s Kirk is still keen on bending the rules, but having lived a very different life, and to be fair, one that fans have no real basis to understand, is a bit darker in his leadership. He isn’t as quick to give a genuine smile. He doesn’t as easily trust anyone’s judgement other than his own. To be honest he simply isn’t as likable as the Kirks we’ve known before. But it works here, because this is a version that is purposefully a one-off and we will be meeting a Kirk we know in season 2.
Continued below3. A Balance of Quality and Terror
In an incredibly shocking reveal, this possible future that Pike finds himself living through is a spin on one of the original series’s most famous episodes, “Balance of Terror.” In both episodes, the Enterprise is called to a distress call at a nearby asteroid starbase. With Pike commanding the Enterprise, it shows how much and how little has changed in the last decade and that is clearly the wrong approach for how Starfleet should be handling this threat. Seeing familiar scenes and dialogue play out this way was, in the words of one Mr. Spock, “fascinating.” Re-creating shot styles and lighting from the 1960s as well as simply re-doing specific moments with these characters is the kind of film making magic trick that I’m sure many creatives hope to do when working within a beloved franchise and this episode really hammered every nail on all the heads. It’s too much detail to briefly discuss, so I will leave it with this: Watch both episodes back to back. This will allow you to appreciate the magic at hand and if you are unfamiliar with the TOS episode, you will have that much more of an understanding of the richness between these two takes and the greater canon at large.
4. A Quality of Familiarity
Along with the various changes to the timeline that Pike experiences in his brief crystal adventure, there are some notable changes that prove that not all is different. Una is no longer Number One, Spock is. And at some point Scotty became head engineer. We only hear his voice over the comms, but it’s Montgomery Scott to be sure. It’s easy to assume that they have yet to permanently cast the role and that’s why we only got a voice this time around. La’an is also gone from the ship, but other fan favorites, missing, most likely as to not have to cast them, are helmsman Chekov and Sulu, and Dr. McCoy as characters like M’Benga, Ortega, and Sam Kirk are still aboard in this alternate future. It was a fun blending of familiar and unfamiliar, like the majority of this episode.
5. Oh no! Una!
In the third episode of the season, Una is revealed to be an Illyrian, one of the alien species that the Federation does not welcome with open arms. This is because the Illyrians believe in genetic modification and this scares the Federation as they know what happens when a race of genetically altered super-beings attempt to take over. Shortly after Pike returns to his own time and universe, his sometimes girlfriend Captain Batel arrives with two security officers to apprehend Una and take her to a prison colony.
After an equally emotionally draining and rewarding season finale, having this other beloved character dragged off the ship and imprisoned just for who she is is something that is both anger inducing and heartbreaking. A story thread like this is especially upsetting because of a few certain recent events in our own timeline. This is one of those somewhat understandable, yet truly upsetting aspects of the Federation and Starfleet. Fans may understand their fear, but at the same time it’s painful to see another hero that we love getting arrested for something mostly out of her control. Also: her body, her choice.
